(The Streisand Effect describes the phenomenon by which an attempt to suppress information results in faster, broader dissemination of that information. Roughly explained, attempted censorship -- particularly by a famous or well-known entity -- can flag the information as more interesting.)

Last October, we launched the Takedown Hall of Shame to highlight the most egregious attempts to silence speech online with bogus intellectual property complaints. Today, we’re inducting four more would-be censors into the pantheon of speech bullies. They are:

It will be a long time before we understand all the ramifications of Google's decision to cease censoring their Chinese services — and the cyber-attack on their corporate and user data that prompted that change of heart. The story is still confusing in parts (Sky Canaves at the WSJ clarifies some of the more muddled reports). Nonetheless some intriguing new details have emerged since the initial announcement — but they raise as many questions as they answer.

Today marks the deadline for the first round of comments to the FCC regarding its proposed "net neutrality" regulations. Here's a quick summary of what EFF had to say in its comments to the Commission:

It's the dawn of a new year. From our perch on the frontier of electronic civil liberties, EFF has collected a list of a dozen important trends in law, technology and business that we think will play a significant role in shaping online rights in 2010.

In December, we'll revisit this post and see how it all worked out.

1. Attacks on Cryptography: New Avenues for Intercepting Communications

In 2010, several problems with cryptography implementations should come to the fore, showing that even encrypted communications aren't as safe as users expect. Two of the most significant problems we expect concern cellphone security and web browser security.

EFF has long fought for the privacy of your laptop and other digital devices at the border. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has implemented program that authorizes searches of the contents of travelers’ laptop computers and other electronic storage devices at border crossings, notwithstanding the absence of probable cause, reasonable suspicion or any indicia of wrongdoing.

In U.S. v. Arnold we fought for a requirement that customs agents have some reason before searching your computer and in our FOIA work on border searches, we have pushed the government to reveal its policies and practices in this area.

Last night, Google announced that Gmail sessions will now be fully encrypted with HTTPS by default. This is excellent news — EFF congratulates Google for taking this significant step to safeguard their users' privacy and security.

Previously, it was possible to encrypt your access to Gmail, but it required altering the default configuration. Now every Gmail user will get the benefits of encryption without needing to know that they need it.